


Kaz Brekker's Five Truths and One Story

by BluesYogurt



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: 5+1 Things, Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Language, Multi, or sorta, time to for the other's to learn kaz's tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 13:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluesYogurt/pseuds/BluesYogurt
Summary: Almost a year since the events from the Ice Court and their plans against Jan Van Eck, the whole crew has reunited to see each other again to visit Ravka alongside Nina. In the days leading up to their trip, Kaz finds the opportunity to share with each of his friends, a part of himself he had never told anyone about.





	1. Kuwei and His Father

**Author's Note:**

> Lemme introduce myself by showing you some of the notes I have on the document for this fic: Alternative title for this document: I’M FUCKING WRITING A SIX OF CROWS FIC WHETHER I LIKE IT OR NOT. IT’S FINAL.
> 
> 22:56, now presenting the first draft of Kaz Brekker’s Five Truths and One Story (very fragile title, will be seen later on.)
> 
> so now i present the first part of this fic which is unbetaed and untouched since i last saw worked on it in october 2017

Despite Nina’s clamors of a good time with fun and reunion, Kuwei still felt doubtful about returning to Ketterdam, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be thrown into another hostile situation that would imply having some of the world’s most powerful people believing him to be dead.

Again.

Even so, he was persuaded by his friend, it was the smile in her eyes at the prospect of seeing her crew once more, the separation that was made a year ago weighed on her shoulders and her conscious. She’d lost much last year, so he conceded her wish of visiting the filthy town of Ketterdam.

But it was also the fact that she seemed so convinced at her words as she told him he would have fun and that every one of their friends would be glad to see him again. Even Wylan. There was no weight to her words that would indicate to him that she was trying to lie. Kuwei could easily pick out lies that way, feeling their weight linger within his mind as he perceived them. Mere habit from his time in the Fjerdan prison with light so called promises of life.

So there he found himself, sitting in a grand living room, stomach full and seeing lights in other houses begin to turn on. Nina was right, he was received well, with only a playful glower from Wylan and a warm hug from Inej. Dinner an exciting affair, even though he felt like playing more of an observer's role, he was constantly pulled into conversation and sharing laughter with the group. 

But dinner ended and he lent his attention to three of the teenagers who broke into the most secure prison in the world, as they sang drunkenly along to sea shanties accompanied by the melodic playing of a grand piano.

Jesper, whose hair was now longer, eyes younger, hands steadier, was failing to hide his laugh within his lips as he acted out the lyrics with Nina dramatically. The song talked about a woman leaving the pirate because she’s jealous of the sea, or something along those lines. Wylan had tears falling from his eyes out of laughter whilst Jesper begs Nina’s forgiveness as he had an affair with the sea.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how young they all are.

Young enough to be able to do it all, he thinks, and steals a glance at Inej, who he’d met as a kind girl who he had to save, for she’d done so much to save him. Now, she’s the most feared pirate in the sea, killing slavers as one kills mosquitoes on their skin in the summer. The famous Wraith, whose face lit up when she saw him alongside Nina and who asked so many questions of his life in Ravka but was never intrusive.

She is also the one who taught them song earlier, and her mouth moves singing the lyrics softly with an infectious grin gracing her expression. Her hands, contrarily, intertwine with the devil himself.

Kaz Brekker.

The eighteen year old boy that has a city under his pinkie finger, the same finger that holds on to the deadliest girl in the sea. Dirtyhands. The Bastard of the Barrel. Demjin. Everyone had a title for him, except Kuwei who couldn’t understand what to make of him. He was saved and threatened by Kaz more than once. He had seen him drowning, he had seen him dead. 

But Kaz, to his recollection, had never lied to him. Or didn’t tell a lie that was not exposed shortly after, when he deemed it the correct time for the truth. The ugliest words that Kaz said, had all been translated to him and he understood them clearly. There was no lost love to the alleged King of Ketterdam, but there was a glimmer of respect.

Yet never would he have expected to see him standing in a moment and leading Inej to their friends, spinning her once, inspiring Jesper to sing to her as if she were the sea itself, while Nina overacts a tremendous jealousy then sadness as the pirate eventually drowns himself to always be with the sea.

Brekker stays with them until the song ends, and when the shouts of song titles and occasionally the singing along to the melody for the others to understand, that Kuwei is shocked once more when Kaz returns to sit next to him. 

Not a glance was spared.

“Do you not sing?” Kuwei asks, to break the tension he felt. Confusion, perhaps. Anxiousness. He sees himself repeating his death once more.

Kaz responds with silence. Not tearing his eyes away from the group as Nina jumps giddily and starts suggesting a song to Inej. “Are you still in love with Jesper?”

Kuwei refrains from letting the shock of receiving the question show. “I was never in love with him, I just found him… appealing. Aesthetically. I didn’t have much to look at in the grave.”

Kaz nods at this and lets the words die off with more silence. The group screams in unison as they all decide to sing a children’s song which Jesper quickly changes the words to more explicit lyrics, Nina tries to censor them and jokingly covers Wylan’s ears as Jesper sings.

Silence with Kaz was not comfortable. It was intentional. His weight in the conversation; it felt like talking to a try-hard actor, dramaticism at its best with long pauses and correctly queued glances. Kuwei wonders if he once had an inclination for theatre.

“It’s almost been a year.” Kaz says.

“Yes. A long year.” Kuwei answers, he feels as if it’s an adequately concise answer. Not long enough to reveal anything. Not short enough to sound uninterested.

“How is Ravka?” It’d be hard to believe that Kaz Brekker was trying to make small talk

“Lovely, I suppose. I’ve had a lot of difficulty adapting to such a new place without my father.”

“Your first year without your father,” he intones with his deep voice. There’s a tilt to it, and his expression seems far away, as if he were using that scheming face that Jesper and Inej can so easily recognize.

“I miss him every day.” And he does, there is no exaggeration to his words. For every day that he burns a his clothing by accident, or he sees orange stains of parem on someone’s teeth, or there is simply a smell of food coming from a house he walks by, there is a pang in his stomach that cannot be fed for it screams for father.

“It will fade away.” Kaz dismisses.

Whether insulted or merely hurt, Kuwei faces Kaz and spits out “What about you? Your father is merely the kruge you touch and your mother is the interest you win. You cannot understand what I went through. You do not get to dictate my grief as you’ve dictated everything I did a year ago, Kaz Brekker.”

Kaz turns to look at him, and the voices of their friends grow louder as they try to harmonize with three terrible pitches.

“My father was killed.” Kuwei practically snarls, but he cannot find himself to stop. “I do not know where his body lays. I never got to speak any last words to him. And after he died I did not get the opportunity to mourn him for I had to focus on staying alive. I still do. He was all I had. He was my father. My friend. The person who protected me. I cannot stand you sitting and telling my pain will simply fade away.”

Silence beats in spaced out rhythm as Kaz doesn’t react, there is no surprise, no pain nor pity towards Kuwei. Regret settles in his stomach. He’s about to stand up and leave but finds no strength in his legs. 

Nina lets out a terrible shriek that’s supposed to pass as a high note.

“My father died when I was young, younger than you. He died a violent death.” Kaz begins, his gaze once again set forward to Wylan and Nina, who were now trying to waltz. “I moved to Ketterdam short after, and in the midst of trying to survive it all do I now realize that I have not thought about my father in too long a time. I hardly could tell you where he’s buried. But I suppose he wouldn’t recognize who is the man putting flowers on his grave. His son is dead.” Kaz’s voice is distant but he only speaks to Kuwei, his pale hands grip his cane and his knuckles lose color out of the force put into it.

“The first year is the hardest. Because absence contains a weight that we cannot carry for too long. We must rest and we are forced to look at it. To look at all that we miss and want, yet cannot have.”

They fall into silence once more, not comfortable, but not weighted. It’s intentionality has been set for when the right words begin to appear. But their silence is interrupted by Nina taking Kuwei out to dance with her and Jesper and Inej dragging Kaz along to follow them along with linked arms.

He remembers the expression, the night is young and so are we. The songs and dance carry on until late, of which Kaz returns to the Barrel, Nina and Inej hold hands in excitement as young girls at the idea of sharing a room, and Wylan carries an excited Jesper to their bed. Kuwei is on his own in one of the enormous guest rooms and it isn’t until he’s on the brink of falling asleep, that Kuwei realizes that he had not felt any heaviness of a lie in Kaz’s story.


	2. Jesper and Jordie

While Jesper had been living in the Van Eck mansion for almost a year, he had never been so blatantly kicked out of his own home as well as he’d never been kicked out by two people who didn’t even live there. 

Nina and Inej had sent him out saying that _he_ was forced to force _Kaz_ over for lunch or they wouldn’t open the door if he came back without him.  
  
He’s pretty sure they somehow have his keys as well.  
  
Therefore off he went, walking through the streets of the Barrel and going into the Crow Club as he would have a year ago. He no longer stays there. He doesn’t itch for a spin of the Makker’s Wheel as he once did, but the temptation was a quiet ring in his ear that was also catching the attention of his eye. It was midday, there were so few gambling at this hour.  
  
Jesper is received by loud cheers from his old friends. They all ask him how it’s like to live a Merchant life and make teasing commentary about his relationship with Wylan, accusing Jesper of besmirching him of his innocent doe eyed look. At least, he hopes they are teasing. He may not keep the unsteady hands ready for a gamble as he once did, but that only made his hands even more reliable on his triggers.  
  
He laughs good naturedly with his peers, asking around about them and their lives, then eventually asks for Kaz, who was shockingly in his office, despite the time of day. Thanking them for the information, Jesper climbs up the creaky stairs of the Crow Club and arrives to his friend’s office.

Friend. Kaz Brekker is his friend. A difficult sentence. 

Kaz Brekker is his boss. His partner. Ally. Accomplice. Kaz was like the games he shouldn’t have played and the spins he shouldn’t have taken, the cards he should have never touched: impossible, painful, toxic,  _ wrong _ . But back then, he loved him anyway. And love him, he still does, just not in the same way.

Because of this, he feels comfortable with knocking on his door and opening it, without waiting for any call for entry. Spotting him immediately sitting at his desk, glaring at the door intensely as if only his glare would be able to shut it close on whoever was coming in, and the force of the door slamming would make whoever came in fall down the entire flight of stairs. His eyes then saw Jesper and the glare lost a few degrees of intensity.

“Jes, if you come into my office again without my permission I will throw a knife in between your eyes.” Kaz says, his gaze on the papers he was writing on.

“Aw, come on, Kaz. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.” Jesper teases, remembering the Ice Court and the fleeting moment of Kaz Brekker in all his glory that Jesper hadn’t noticed for there was something far more shocking than his entire naked body.

“I remember you gawking at my hands.” That. The pale hands that carried so many conclusions, the pale hands that were exposed so frequently now. He can’t believe he thought Kaz hadn’t noticed.

It was  _ Kaz.  _ He noticed everything.

“Speaking of hands,” Jesper changes the subject quickly, “Your one true love” Kaz lifts his head and Jesper once again receives the intensity of his glare at Inej’s new title “And your one true love’s other one true love, have courteously told me to ask you if you would lend us your presence at lunch. You have the options _ Yes, at twelve thirty _ or  _ yes, at one o'clock _ .” He stuffs his hands into his pants and awaits response.

Kaz hesitates for a moment, then replying “How is that relevant to hands?”

Jesper cannot resist: “Because you’re a handful to convince.”

Kaz’s response is beautiful. His face drops into the most awful scowl he’d seen since he’d arrived here and the boy lifts one of his pale hands gripping his cane, as if threatening to hit him with it.

“Leave.” He demands in a deadpan.

“I told that joke to Matthias once and he  _ loved  _ it.”

Words once they come out cannot be muted, they cannot be swallowed once again, they linger in the air until the float away or float around someone’s mind, banging against the walls of their head as a bell chimes.

Words like his produce silence. Itchy, awkward, uncomfortable, stupid silence.

“I doubt they use many puns in prison.”

“Not enough for him to catch on, maybe.”

Kaz does a tiny facial gesture, tilting his head to the side and raising his eyebrows quickly for a second, which indicated he conceded to Jesper’s point as he continues to write.

A deep breath. “A year.” Jesper pronounces.

“Almost a year.” Kaz corrects, not even looking back up at him

“It’s almost impossible for me to understand how he’s not here. He’s not in Ravka with Nina and... I knew him what, two months? But I miss him. I wake up sometimes, wondering  _ who  _ the hell happened to him.”

Kaz puts down his quill but doesn’t look at Jesper, one of his hands makes a white knuckled fist that clenches and unclenches rhythmically.

“Because by Ghezen, we were all suppose to make it out. And someone goes out and shoots him? And who? Some terrified neighbor who thought he had the queen’s plague? These days I can’t help but think what he’d be like, what he would be doing and how Nina and him would be, annoyingly in love, probably or maybe they’d have a tiny little Matthias ready--”

“Matthias Helvar is dead, Jes.” Kaz interrupts, his voice is not passionate nor angry but neither is it exactly neutral. “It doesn’t do you or Nina or anyone any good for you to be picturing their happy ending. He had an ending. With a bullet in his stomach by someone he could have never suspected. He’s dead. Move on.” He fists his quill tightly and writes down some numbers, indicating the end of the conversation.

“You better be laying this shit on me and only me, you hear? Because if I catch you talking to Nina about Matthias like this I will shoot you.”

Jesper of a year ago could have never told Kaz off in that way, whether out of fear of losing his place of prestige or Kaz’s trust. A year and all that it carried, had passed. And while the fear was still present, it could be ignored.

“There’s no point in fighting me if your father won’t be there to stop us,  _ Llewylyn _ .”

“I won’t hesitate like I did back then,  _ Jordie _ .”

Kaz blanked for a moment, his eyes widening with fear of a moment and his expression was not able to close off as quickly as it did that day when that name was last uttered aloud. The echoing of a ghost’s name is as disorienting as a strong hit to the ear.

Jesper’s voice softens. “You called me Jordie that day, do you remember?”

“I do,” He has no recollection of Kaz ever whispering, but his voice had the strength of one, yet not the same weakness as hushed words, there is simply no way his voice could ever come off as weak.

“Who is Jordie?” Jesper insists.

“My brother.” Kaz’s eyes don’t meet his own.

“You have a brother?”

“Had.”

“I’m sorry,”

“You remind me of him. Or at least, reminded, not as much anymore. Both young. Impulsive. The floor was disappearing before us but he only saw that he had a few tiles left in front of him.”

Kaz looks away, he stands from his desk and walks to the window.

“I moved to Ketterdam, holding onto his hand. We had money from selling our farm, and we were just pigeons in smaller size, going off and believing in any word that was offered that we’d have money one day. He got a job for Jakob Hertzoon making small investments until he thought it to be safe to make an investment worth all we had. Jakob Hertzoon disappeared with all our money in his bank.

“Jordie and I had to live on the streets, we began to starve but we were still surviving despite it all…

“Until the queen’s plague got us both. And the last I saw of my brother was him floating in the river.”

“Kaz, I--”

“I’m older than he’ll ever be.”

Flabbergasted, Jesper hesitated as to what to do, this was a fragment of Kaz he’d never seen before. Beaten down, pained with some unreachable wound. His eyes looking down on the floor, with a downtrodden look almost giving up. Jesper felt frozen yet twitchy. Who was this Kaz?

How do you comfort a such familiar stranger? 

He walks toward him, stands in front of him and immediately does Kaz seem to realize his actions and whichever Kaz had occupied his place the moment before was beaten with his cane and taken aside, and in an instant he’s back. His gaze is not warm, not cold. Powerfully neutral, scrutinizing each one of Jesper’s moves and meets him in his eyes.

“I am your brother, Kaz. Not in blood. But in trust.”

An almost indistinguishable nod.

“I’ll join you for lunch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i upload this with the intention of trying to pressure myself into writing more since this is the last thing i had. thank you all for the kindness that you took this fic with i am very grateful. hopefully i upload soon???


	3. Nina and Touch

**Nina loved travelling back to Ravka.** Especially now since that she was travelling alongside all her friends so they could visit at least for a couple of weeks. She didn’t allow the reason for their visit to linger in her thoughts for too long, at least not yet, when they had only set sail a few days ago.

Nina had returned to Ketterdam weeks before for various reasons; she had wante to anticipate Inej’s arrival to the city before Inej herself had gotten there; she wanted to see her old friends again. 

And it was nearing a year since the events of their last heists together and all the memories she had couldn’t be shared with only herself and Kuwei.

There had been seven of them once.

So she packed her things and begged Kuwei to come with her. Fortunately, he eventually conceded but had spent the majority of his evenings hidden in the guest room that Wylan and Jesper had for him. They were all too aware of how soon it had been for him to once again be able return to the streets of Ketterdam unscathed, and though his hair was longer and he was taller, he was unmistakably himself, and Kuwei Yul-Bo was meant dead to the leaders of the world and the city of Ketterdam.

Nina was incredibly thankful that he had accompanied her through the trip, and while she regretted how Kuwei hadn’t had the best return to Ketterdam, he had already perked up as soon as the Wraith set sail towards his home.

So with six days of sailing spent, Nina was walking around the deck, looking for someone to talk to. Inej having disappeared from her side since that morning when they ate breakfast together.

Nina looked out the ship’s side, there was nothing in sight except the rain heavy clouds and the horizon to horizon of water.  _ It was like being captured on a small island, _ she thought.  _ One that moved _ , she added to her ridiculous thought. The wind lifted her hair a smallest amount and once again she felt the scent of sea salt and ocean sift within her.

Inej was almost rejuvenated with being on her ship again, despite having left it for only a few weeks. The only one who had struggled had been Jesper who was sick several times the first days. He had not been on a boat since he visited his father, he had told her. And he hadn’t felt bad when he had travelled six months back.

Kaz hadn’t been on a ship longer than anyone, but she doubted anyone would ever see Kaz Brekker sick on the side of a ship and come out of it alive.

_ Matthias got sick on ships. _

Her stomach churned. The memories of him were always fond and welcome, but sometimes so intrusive, like a sudden headache of mourning that emphasized the nothing in the empty space in her heart.

_ When we were travelling to the Ice Court, he spent full days in misery, and I’d had my hands so full with Inej dying that I never found out until Jesper came to bring me food and started to laugh about it. _

_ Back then I could’ve helped him. _

Her heart rushed and her breathing was unsteady, shaking her head she pulled away from the side of the ship and went to seek Inej in her quarters to see if she could focus on something else, for a moment, anything else. Instead of her best friend, she arrived to only to find Kaz instead, with his shoes off, his jacket on the back of the chair he was sitting on, and his gloves on the desk his arm was resting on.

It was the most dishevelled and relaxed she might have ever seen him.

“What are you doing here?” Nina asked, stepping inside and sitting on the small bed.

“Thinking.” He answered simply, his gaze following her.

“You are such a contemplative soul, Kaz, I cannot believe I never thought of that,” Nina quipped lightly, sarcasm painting her words. “Inej let you down here?”

“Yes, it is  _ her  _ quarters.” He was speaking so calmly, it was strange for her.

“Very true, but now Kaz, it’s just  _ me  _ and  _ you _ ,  _ all alone. _ ” She smiled her most enchanting smile and laid down on the bed, keeping her eyes locked on his, raising only one eyebrow as if inviting him.

As usual Kaz never took the bite. He didn’t even look away from her before answering “You don’t look like you even felt like that”

“Not my best material I will admit.” Nina didn’t sit back up, instead got slightly more comfortable on the soft bed, slightly envious that Inej slept on a bed instead of the hammocks like the former Dregs and her crew did.

Kaz observed her before grabbing his jacket and his shoes, as soundless as the name of the ship and the girl he named it for; Nina peeked through one of her eyes, that she hadn’t realized she had closed and quickly sat up.

“No, no Kaz you don’t have to leave, I was just looking for Inej.”

“You look exhausted.” Kaz asserts, “You lied on the bed and were almost asleep in the space of a heartbeat.”

“You have always been the charmer, aren’t you?” Nina smirks.

“Nina, rest here. I will send Inej over to you.”

Nina was taken aback by Kaz’s sudden kindness. She never thought he would kick her out, but perhaps he’d just leave with no second thought. And definitely, Nina thought, that Kaz’s priorities didn’t have _ give a damn about her wellbeing  _ as part of the list. 

Throughout her stay in Ketterdam, she realized that they had all changed. Wylan’s humor, his so call “corruption” despite working legally and on the right side of the law for the first time in a long time. 

Jesper was steadier handed, wide smiled as always but with a clearer mind, fighting against addiction as she once had. 

Inej was louder without raising her voice. Her presence was louder, her happiness, her ruthlessness since finding what she wanted to do. She was still the Wraith and could still walk on dry leaves without making a sound.

And what had changed of Kaz hadn’t been much in self. He didn’t wear his gloves the entire time he was with his friends. He held hands with Inej, when over the years the had gone past, she had once tried to hold his hand or touch his arm in a joking flirtation and he would gracefully dance away or threaten her.

“Do you care enough to do that?”

“It may surprise you, but I consider you to be my friend, Nina Zenik.”

It stunned her for a moment, but she couldn’t help the line of thought that followed through, “Friends tell each other things.” The words just seemed to fall out.

Kaz’s face revealed nothing as usual, he simply sat down on the chair once again, “What do you wish to know”, and as usual, Kaz always understood other’s motives before it could manage to shake him.

“What were the gloves for?”

He looked away for a moment, and they both sat in a tense silence that felt like it was preparing to burst. His gloves were on the desk still, his cane on the floor. But he slowly grabbed the pair of the characteristic black leather and looked onto the ground. “You can get no where if you cannot touch anyone.”

Again Nina felt overwhelmed and still very confused, half answers as always, Kaz Brekker never really did change. “What do you mean?”

He still would not look her in the eyes. “I needed the gloves when I was still new in the Dregs, because I couldn’t handle the touch of someone’s skin on my own. I couldn’t manage people touching me even through layers of clothing. It disgusted me.”

And more quietly, he mutters: “Sometimes it still disgusts me.” Before continuing in his previous, low, almost secretive tone.

“So I wore the gloves to survive. To choke someone to death is more poetic with if one does it with their bare hands but gloves don’t make a damn difference. To cut someone’s eye out, to lift their shirts and punch until you see blood you can all do it without needing to have them touch you back, and if someone managed to touch me in return, they wouldn’t make it out of the fight alive.

“I started feeling this way when I was still very young, but I tried to get over it because it was and still is a weakness that I carr. But I couldn’t tolerate the feeling of touch was like the ocean was rising and I kept drowning, it was so easy for  _ it  _ to take over. If Pekka Rollins or Jan Van Eck knew that Dirtyhands’s biggest weakness was his aversion to touch, we would have never gotten anywhere,

“It felt like death, to be touched. To be choked, to have water filled lungs, to be set on fucking flame every time it lingered. It was conflicting emotions of torture to me.”

Nina is shocked into silence, as Kaz slowly picks up his cane and starts to look at the crow head that holds his hand.

“So I began to wear gloves and never took them off, to shake someone’s hands, to hold them still while they’re writhing to live, with the gloves it became less of a problem. Eventually it was my legacy. Gloves that were hiding brimstone, or talons, or they were eternally bloody; even people who knew me before I wore them forgot what laid under them. Gloves and a cane. Dirtyhands would come to see the rough work done”

“And what changed?”

“Inej. She wanted to be with me. And I wanted to be with her. But she knew that she deserved better than I was worth and the little I was giving to her, wasn’t enough. So for her I tried harder, I would drown and be set on fire and die every day, I would fight petty fights but never kill them because with the adrenaline you could feel the pulse lingering and it was a quick reminder I was alive, they were alive, and that I was about to win.”

Nina’s mind flashes to many things, a dying Inej in Kaz’s arms, Jesper giving him a pat on the back, and once again, a flash from the prison, when she had grabbed his arm in a desperate attempt for Kaz to find a way to keep Matthias Helvar from killing wolves, and through the layers of the clothes that she had had gripped on his arm, he could barely control his reaction when he told her to back off.where he had only warned her to back off. “You never hurt me when I accidentally touched you. I don’t think you hurt any of us.”

“Well, I did hit Helvar with my cane in the joints when he and I first met, but because he insisted on doing things with his grandish brute force, we eventually understood each other.”

“And because?” He had omitted the question and he wasn’t even subtle about it.

Kaz struggled to begin once more. “I may have never admitted it. But you were my crew, and eventually, my friends. I would never hurt you. I tried to control it the most for you five.”

“Kaz...” But she couldn’t think of something else to say, it was the most she knew about him and she had known him for three years.

Suddenly the door opened and Inej walked into the room, completely drenched. Outside it had begun to rain and Nina and never even noticed the sound of the water hitting outside her friend’s quarters.

Inej looked exasperated. “I look through the entire ship for you both and you two are just down here in my room gossiping, all comfortable and warm while I kept wondering if someone had finally cracked and thrown Kaz overboard.”

Nina cracked a smile “Can you blame me, Captain? You’re the only with an actual bed on this thing.” She lays back down and waves her arms through the sheets, as if making an angel with the folds

Kaz sits up quickly, and presses a kiss to Inej’s wet hair. “I will go see Jes and Wylan, you should rest.”

Inej flushes as Kaz leaves, cane and gloves in hand. But looks back onto her too comfortable friend and shakes her head.

“Move over, I want to lay down."

“But you’re gonna get the bed all wet!” “It’s  _ my  _ bed,”

“Ugh, okay.” Nina moves so Inej can fit her tiny, drenched body next to her, immediately chilling the warmth she was feeling. They’re in silence for about two minutes until Nina breaks it once again.

“Do you love him?” Nina whispers quietly.

“You know I do,”

“Does he love you back?”

“I know he does,”

“Then why don’t you two share a hammock and leave me the bed?” Nina comments, and laughs as Inej tries to push her off the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta-ed, all mistakes belong to me, o' course. And I hope you liked it, if it feels very different from the other two chapters, it's because I wrote the majority of this today, and felt impulsed to update. Thank you for reading even if you didn't like it!


	4. Wylan and his Name

**Wylan was a bit done with the sea.** And by a bit done, he really means that he wants to see land in the next hour or two. He is absolutely done. The first few days it was pleasant, the rock of the ocean, the distance from society and everyone waiting for the Van Eck son to fail, even though it’s been almost a year since he took his father’s business and yet still some of his associates treat Wylan almost coldly, like they expected him to pull a Kaz and just run off to the Shu with all their money.

And some days, he wishes he were able to plan something like that by himself. Just to spite everyone.

Don’t get him wrong, if someone does something towards him or Jesper that doesn’t particularly rub him the right way, he has found himself devising  small opportunities where the third person’s pens explode in all their important paperwork, or a small fire that starts to burn in only that person’s bedroom. He keeps it small, where no one can trace it back to him ever again.

It’s been a year and no one knows that he used to be Kaz Brekker’s demolitions expert. There’s a certain power to it.

While he’s glad he’s away from the merchants and the higher class, he’s very much tired of being around so much sea. Especially now that Jesper wasn’t getting sick anymore. Which was good for Jes, but bad for Wylan’s distractions. 

He’s so restless that his boyfriend’s sickness was a diversion...

He and Kuwei played chess, Jesper reads to him but usually grows tired reading chemistry books which Wylan brought along to read if only because he laughs at how Jesper pronounces some technical words, or how he stops paying attention and uses words from the page to create his own story. 

He’s drawn every sunset he could, he helped with cooking and learned a little navigation with Inej. He tried to help with cleaning but he was slow at it and the Wraith’s crew while patient and kind, did what he managed in half an hour to do in less than a few minutes.

He enjoys the climb of the ropes to reach the Crow’s nest, and whenever Jesper finds him up there, he makes a joke about how the Crow Club really let itself go.

Now he’s just wandering below the main deck, looking at cannons and weapons that Inej and her crew use when the ship is up against slavers and other pirates.When a rumor ran through Ketterdam of a half a dozen men arriving to the city through the harbour, floating on pieces of a destroyed ship, Jesper and Wylan found themself priding in silence. The men moaned and warned to any rotten soul that would listen on how there was a captain as silent as a ghost, going off and killing every slaver ship on the sea.

Those six men disappeared the next day, and Kaz came to visit Wylan and Jesper at their home that night.

And if one dare to think of the devil, there he sat in the shadows, with his head against the wall, and his cane standing still and straight, as Kaz held it from the base while he scrutinized Wylan through the almost closed lids of his eyes. His bad leg was stretched out and the other was folded against him, with his arm resting on top of it.

“Were you ever going to reveal that you were here or were you waiting for me to leave?” Wylan asks, walking towards Kaz, who from above looks like he’s almost sleeping. Or dead. 

“I was waiting for you to see me, I figured you of all people would. Three men have come down in here and no one has noticed yet.” His head rolled to the side lazily, staying against the wall, as he looked towards the stairs where Wylan had come from, as if expecting someone else.

For a moment, Wylan had the staggering thought that Kaz might be drunk.

“It seems you learned something from Inej after all.” He recovers.

Kaz shrugs loosely “I’d wager it’s more that the crew is used to having a body or three just lay here,”

He’s not sure if it’s a comment hidden well within that just happened to burst out or if he was testing his theory that Kaz could be drunk, but before he could stop himself he said: “You are pale enough,” 

Kaz strangely enough, merely smirked, not even looking up at him “And you’re red enough to be confused for some of the fish we eat.”

It was true, from the days of boredom and going to the Crow’s Nest and helping the crew clean, Wylan’s skin had burned and peeled but hadn’t yet turned a light shade of brown, instead it went more intensely red.

“Fair,” he blushed so quickly it seemed his body was keen to prove Kaz’s point. “Why are you down here, Kaz?”

“Thinking.” He closed his eyes, and turned his face forward to where it would look towards Wylan’s legs “And yourself, merchling?”

“Oh well, I’m… just bored.”

He could see the small grin at his answer form, and his face heated up to a temperature that made it possible to burn his skin even more.

“Sit.” Kaz commanded.

He was drunk, he was definitely drunk. Had Wylan ever seen Kaz drunk before? Had Wylan ever seen Kaz drink before? He was sure he must have expressed a comment about drinking in his past, but had he seen him do it?

He sat on the other wall, both of them hidden far in the corner.

Kaz still hadn’t opened his eyes. In following minutes, as Kaz didn’t speak nor seem to even breathe, Wylan felt like his friend had fallen asleep on the lower deck of a next to a barrel of gunpowder, with his cane in hand still rod straight.

“Why haven’t you changed your name yet?” The voice and the question came from seemingly nowhere.

“What?” He asked in bewilderment.

“Van Eck. After everything we went through with your father, I thought you were going to change your name.” He looked at him now, his gaze seemed focused but not his own, it felt like he were talking to someone who carried Kaz’s skin but not his soul. Or maybe lack thereof, as Kaz would say.

“I’d thought about it,” he stumbled through his words, rushing them and slowing them down just as quickly. “But well, my father’s business and his associates are based to the Van Eck name and work with it because of it’s prestige, it’s not a matter of want anymore, I suppose. It’s become an obligation to continue with it.”

“After a year they don’t work with it because of its prestige, Wylan. They continue to work with Van Eck because their new partner has found a way to make them more kruge than before without a single drop in what they had.”

“So?”

“Eleven months back, when Jan Van Eck was arrested and his fresh faced son took up his position, all his associates and all the groomed merchants could have left, so they wouldn’t have to be pinned together with the tainted name of the imprisoned man. But they didn’t. Because the son pulled off something even better than whatever they had.” Kaz looked forward and brought his cane to his shoulder, the sharp crow beak almost against his cheek. “They’re staying because of you.”

Wylan didn’t know how to answer to that, he was touched by Kaz’s observation, and trusted in what he had seen, even though it saw him in a better light. He settled on not answering, and when he looked again at Kaz who had once again faced forward with his eyes closed.

So Wylan did the same, leaned his head back against the ship’s wall, and closed his eyes and in the space between him and Kaz there was comfortable silence, and outside of them, the waves hit the ship, the boat kept navigating and the footsteps of the crew could still be heard from the deck above them.

He hadn’t been able to talk to a single person about the reason why they were all gathering. Nobody wanted to talk about the Ice Court or when the city turned against them or how they had lost Matthias. His friends were so quiet about the manner it felt as if it were a dream.

And sometimes it did feel like a dream. A crew of young criminals broke into and got out of the safest, most protected prison in the world. They had faked the most terrible plague that had ever reached the city of Ketterdam, faked the death of the most wanted person in the world and had gotten their share of the money out of all of it.

With the expense of Matthias’s life being the most costly of them all.

And no one had yet uttered his name.

He interrupted their silence suddenly, “I came to the Dregs as Wylan Hendriks, do you remember?” He opened his eyes and looked over to Kaz, pondering if he had actually fallen asleep.

“I do.” His naturally harsh voice utters, but remains with his eyes closed. “I also remember when you got the Dregs tattoo.”

“You were there?” Wylan blinks, he remembers Nina being there to help the artist keep him still, make sure the area felt slightly numb. She was all smiles that day. But he only remembers Nina, the artist and some members of the Dregs that were piling up on him to look at him getting the tattoo; it had been a slow day.

Kaz continues the subject as if he hadn’t spoken. “Everyone had a wager that you would cry. My bet was that you would at the end out of relief.”

“I didn’t cry!” He exclaims, then cringes at his tone of voice. He sounded almost like a petulant child.

“You didn’t.” Kaz acknowledges. “You bit your lip and waited for it to be done. I believe that you like the mark, that’s why you didn’t cry that day and why you haven’t gone to a tailor to get it off of you.” Kaz opens one eye, as if to inspect him and confirm his conclusion.

“It feels too personal to have it taken off.” Wylan mutters, tracing with a few fingers his upper arm, where under the sleeve of his clothing does the Dregs tattoo hide.

“And your name does too?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m used to being Wylan Van Eck. But… maybe it is time to change it. I should not hold anything for the sake of my father, he couldn’t even hold any love for his son.” Wylan Hendriks. A stranger who’d come to the Barrel to survive. Maybe taking the name back wouldn’t be so bad.

“He tried to have me killed, you know? Before the whole situation with Kuwei. He told me I was going to art school, and when I was going there, two men that he’d hired tried to kill me. I had to jump into the harbour to get away from them. And now I wonder if the boy that got to shore was still even Wylan Van Eck-” He cuts himself off, because as his thoughts meandered without his permission he caught a look at Kaz, which frightened him for Kaz looked unnerved.

His eyes are wide open and he looks more alert than he had in the past half hour of them sitting together. He’s looking at Wylan as if he were trying to decipher him.  

“Kaz, are you alri-?”

“Rietveld.” He interrupts

“What?”

“My name isn’t Kaz Brekker, I was born Kaz Rietveld.”

Wylan doesn’t say anything, Kaz was speaking to him, but he felt like it was more of his friend being compelled to say the words to him.

“The name belonged to another person, to a boy who grew up on a farm somewhere far away from the city with an older brother to play with and a loving father to depend on. Those three people are dead. I was born in a harbour where that other boy died, and where you, Wylan Hendriks, came out of, but I left the water differently. I came out knowing there was no place for the other boy to exist anymore.”

“How old were you?” Wylan speaks softly as if trying not to break the spell that the confession had come from.

“Nine.” He utters.

Wylan’s mind rushes through the number, nine years back had a young Kaz changed to the way he is now. A child who’d come out of the harbour for whichever reason and had become something new. Brekker. 

“Brekker.” Wylan recites, as if he were hearing the name for the first time.

“Kaz Brekker,” he affirms. “Dirtyhands. The Bastard of the Barrel.”

“On this ship you’re known as the Wraith Queen’s lover.” Wylan tries amend. 

Kaz let a sharp, pronounced laugh and can’t seem to contain his smile at the name, he looks to Wylan and keeps the smile as he says “That might be the finest title of them all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three things.
> 
> 1) I simultaneously like and don't like how I wrote this chapter  
> 2) Wylan totally has the crow and the cup tattoo. You can't tell me he doesn't. The only one who doesn't have it is Inej.  
> 3) To refresh myself Matthias's death and afterwards I grabbed CK and opened on the chapter where Matthias died (I JUST WANTED TO READ ABOUT AFTERWARDS I DIDN'T NEED TO SEE HIM DIE AGAIN) and I had to stop writing for like twenty minutes cause I was crying so hard.  
> 4)) HE NEEDED TO SEE NINA AGAIN. FUCK.


	5. Inej and the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some graphic description about corprses from Kaz towards the end of the chapter.

In the days leading up to the anniversary of their end, there was a silent recollection of knowing when and where each of them were a year back, because it was imprinted on them like a painful scar. They remembered the place, the hour, and what they had to do with such precision it felt like it had been yesterday.

And when it was officially one year since their last scheme together the day had gone by and at every turn of the clock would their gazes catch up with one another and remember what they were doing all those months ago. The memories shared and silent glances of  _ I was with you _ or maybe  _ I was waiting for you, _ spoke too loud for the brightness of day. But as the sun went down and the stars glimmered in the sky did the gazes stop and the speaking returned.

“I was telling them everything.”

“We were at the morgue.”

“I was going through all the pleasure houses spreading the plague,”

“We were at the Church of Barter.”

“I killed Dunyasha.”

“I shot at Kuwei,”

“Matthias found me.”

The weight that that name carried on all of them was so heavy that it was enough to make the tension break. The not-knowing the place of when to speak or who to speak of it with. If the day had ended differently all that time ago, maybe they would be able to speak of it more freely. Or maybe it would be behind them, never to be mentioned of again unless it was in their shared company and their days were beginning to be numbered.

Who had happened to Matthias Helvar was the mystery that hung above all their heads. Who had shot him with correct aim, but allowed him to walk away? Who wanted to kill him but shot for his stomach instead of higher? Who wanted for him to suffer so much with such a torturous wound?

How long did he walk until he reached Nina? 

Very shortly after his death had Inej prayed to her Saints for him to be received well by his own Gods and sprites. She prayed for months until she knew he had been buried in Fjerda, whether the knowledge it would’ve taken Nina that much time to arrive, or the feeling of peace she had felt when she thought of Matthias’s spirit.

It had been a year and it was only now that they were speaking of him

 

* * *

“To Matthias,” they all clinked their glasses together and drank the strange Fjerdan brew Nina insisted to be drunk for their ceremony. They drank as much as they could of the strong beverage, pulled away and poured the rest of the liquid down to the ground.

Inej looked at the soft dirt grow into a darker shade of brown with the liquid flowing through it, all of it mixing together to be taken in by the earth which Matthias Helvar was now part of. She couldn’t place if he was in every soil, in every tree and every plant she could see now, or was it merely in Fjerda or Djerholm. Or perhaps a very specific tree?

Maybe the brew had been a been too strong for Inej, she thought for a moment and brought her focus from the ground to her friends again who were smiling and talking quietly. Kaz standing among them, with his glass in his hand and his gloves covering his skin.

He had mentioned to her in passing that wearing the gloves would help him tonight, for their service to Helvar made him feel overwhelmed, despite not expressing it with such terms, she agreed, and even now she felt slightly too bare herself but not of clothing, but for something within her, and perhaps within all of them that felt just as a fracture exposing a bone would feel: vulnerable, but most importantly, you know you shouldn’t be able to see the bone at all.

She walks towards her friends, and presses her head against Nina’s arm. The softness of her clothing and the underlying warmth of Nina’s skin on an otherwise cold day. The height difference between her and her best friend does not stop Nina from reaching around and tracing Inej’s hair with the tips of her fingers. 

They all gather round in a circle and Jesper pours their glasses to the brim.

And Kuwei begins.

“He helped keep me alive.” His voice rasps out, and all their eyes look onto him as he keeps looking onto the ground or into his cup. “Both in the Ice Court and in Black Veil island, he got me and Jesper out alive.” Inej sees Jesper glance at the ground himself in reminiscence.  “I met him when he was a moment away from killing me, but even so he stood back and looked at me and saw that I was… I don’t know. A kid like him I suppose. Like all of us. Even though we don’t look the part.”

_ Children aren’t supposed keep a haunted look in their eyes _ , Inej thought, children don’t kill and maim and torture for information, join gangs to survive and break into prisons. The children they used to be, or perhaps were  _ supposed  _ to be, never took place for they had all been put on terrible paths; but those were the same paths that brought them together.

“Live beyond and well, Matthias Helvar. Thank you for my life.” Kuwei ends and everyone once again have their glasses meet against each other and chime loudly, then all of them drink from their glass for a moment

Jesper follows, “I only knew him for three months at most, but it felt longer. I thought all of us were invincible and we had something that just protected us because a combination of all seven of us could get off anything. But no, as always Matthias the morally righteous, was the one to prove the rest of us wrong and showed the reality of the situation. But damn it,  _ it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. _ ”

They all look at him, waiting for Jesper to finish but he looks at the ground, perhaps searching for words, does he pause and take a drink of his glass. 

So the rest of them follow dutily.

Wylan takes the moment after to speak up, “He loved you, Nina. He loved you so much, that in the time you were in his life he changed so profoundly and for the better that it’s just.  _ Not fair _ . Not fair that he only made it to eighteen and there are men out there who live five times that age. Who are cruel and merciless and have not a care for anyone besides themselves and it’s  _ wrong _ .”

Inej looks at Wylan, whose gaze remains on his drink, his voice softer in the moment yet still harsh as he thinks towards the men he speaks of, the ones of his past and his present who carry on their merry days of unchanging habits and greedy hands. She looks at Wylan, whose curls have rested on one of his eyes and freckles have multiplied from the time in the ship.

Sometimes it was amazing to think that she and Wylan were the same age.

“It’s wrong that Matthias Helvar was taken away from you. From  _ us _ . Because he was  _ our friend _ , and we were all supposed to make it out.”

_ We were all supposed to make it out,  _ the words felt cursed in a way. Had they all thought once that they were to make it out alive? Had they all fooled themselves into thinking that they were untouchable in that way.

“To Matthias” Wylan’s voice shook, but he held his arm out steady with the drink, not looking towards any of them but into something further from them. “Our accomplice and  most importantly,  _ friend _ .”

They toasted and drank again. The room fell silent. The weight of a year falling onto all their shoulders once more, curling against them, like a nervous serpent around your neck, tightening till it becomes choking.

The air was too heavy, and she was desperate to break it. Inej Ghafa. The Wraith. Silence was her essence and partly engraved into her being now, but not this silence. The unmeasurable kind, uncontrollable, for it is filled with emotion and yet no emotion was piercing enough to break it.

The words spilled out before she could stop herself.

“Matthias, after all this time I hope that you have found yourself the way towards rest, towards a new place to grow from or grow into. And if you have not, I pray that you soon will. With the hands of your spirits or my saints I want to believe that you are alright. Never alone again as that night. May you rest and have found your family in the after.”

She regrets not having asked about his beliefs, in his religion, in his family and his life before everything. She regrets assuming that there would always be time to speak. They were not close. But she knew that Matthias Helvar would be there for her if she needed him to be, and she would protect him if he needed her.

Yet they all failed him.

“To Matthias, rest well until it is time for us to meet again.”

The dull clinking of their glasses as they greet once more feels thicker, the strong taste felt dull as well, the linger of grief more powerful than the drink. They all finally look toward Nina, for their glasses are almost finally out of liquor.

As always, Nina’s voice was steady and firm, but the words kept their heartbreaking tone.

“Matthias, you and I dreamt of a future we never got to have. And that is the world’s greatest injustice. My love, how I miss you. Forgive me for not protecting you. In what’s to come you’ll always have me at your side.”

The glasses did not meet, they all immediately drank all that was left in their cups, before going back to where they had dropped the liquid at the beginning, and put their glasses on the ground, upside down.

The silence was back.

The memorial ritual was explained to them by Nina a few hours before. All the parts had meaning, pouring the liquor on the ground was the last toast to the lost, and it was usually done by the place that they were buried, but if you wish to mourn someone you are far away from, pouring on the ground near a tree counts.

They all look outside, to the warm night and to the shadow of the tree a small distance in front of them. A large tree with branches stretching to all directions and a trunk as thick as the six of them. This was Matthias’s tree. This would always be from now on, Matthias’s tree.

The first one to leave was Kaz. She hears him step away and doesn’t know if the others have realized it yet. He hasn’t spoken since the before the ceremony when he told them all that he wouldn’t share his part of the speech as they all had:

_ “I will honor him and not speak at his memorial. I believe he would have preferred it this way.” _

As always, he left first and without anyone noticing.

 

* * *

Inej arrives to her room late into the morning, having spent the majority of the night reminiscing with her friends. Every moment was one to laugh about: to burst into tears of grief and joy all once. There was not one dull story, one too long silence that felt too heavy to break anymore, it was entirely light, and every little detail and side to the stories of the night that they hadn’t heard were exploited for entertainment. Jesper was fantastic at telling stories, and Wylan’s head for details made them even better.

Nina’s hearty laugh was the strongest thing they all chased for that night. And she had laughed the most and cried the loudest. But they all had, and all together. Never leaving an emotion to run alone.

So now she returned to her room, the small quarters which fit the bed where she stayed, a desk and another bed to the side of the desk were Kaz had been sleeping in the past days. Inej walked in and found Kaz working, with his back to the door, facing the desk and a candle burned to a stub. 

“Kaz?” She calls to him as he didn’t turn towards her when the door opened.

To the call, he turns almost mechanically, his hair standing up as if it’s been run though his hands for hours, his eyes tired and the shadows under them are only emphasized by  the dim lighting.

“Kaz, what are you doing?” Inej steps into the room, and rests her hands on the back of the chair in front of the desk. She passes her eyes on the papers on the table, but is distracted as Kaz quickly gathers them all together with a sweeping of his hands.

“Working.”

“You left hours ago, I thought you would be sleeping.” She slips from behind him to turn and sit on her bed, the sheets messy and untouched from the morning before when she had woken up, it contrasted strongly to Kaz’s untouched but neatly made bed.

“I couldn’t sleep, my thoughts were too loud.” He still hasn’t faced her. His hand on the papers in front of him, pen rolling in between his gloved thumb, index and middle fingers.

Inej leans her arms on the desk, and rests her head on top of them as she looks towards Kaz and asks: “What’s on your mind, love?”

Pet names were an oddity to them. Kaz tended to use sweet names towards others that were coated in irony. The first time he called her something in a non-sarcastic fashion, she hadn’t noticed, proceeded to roll her eyes and walk away.

Now they were more used to it, and dropped the titles within the privacy of each other.

He flashed a sweet smile, the one that lifted the look in his eyes but never showed his teeth. “You. Always.”

“If that weren’t a lie, I’d be offended that the thought of me keeps you restless.” She laughs and stands up, walking behind him and gently resting her arms his coated shoulders. He tenses for a moment, and in silence do they wait till he calms. And stretches one hand to grip one of her fingers.

“I’m thinking of travelling to Fjerda.” He confesses.

“Why?”

He lets go of her hand, softly. “Unfinished business.”

Inej goes to sit on the desk, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Kaz, we’re still wanted by the Druskelle, even if Kuwei is thought to be dead, it isn’t safe.”

“When has safe ever been an option?”

“Why do you need to go to Fjerda, love?” She repeats.

“I have some unfinished business there, don’t ask me to elaborate. Please.” He adds as an afterthought.  

“Is this about Matthias?” Inej whispers.

Kaz looks away, breaking their gaze. 

“In some way.”

“I know you’re still convinced a Druskelle got to him, but Kaz there are thousands of them, you can’t go off and kill them all one by one.”

Suddenly her mind is filled with a hundred of Matthias look-alike soldiers shooting at an already dead Kaz, whose black clothes turn purple, and does the blood never finish staining the snow.

“Do you think me to be that reckless, Wraith?” He smirks half heartedly.

“When you’ve set your mind to it, yes. I saw you take on the entire Crow Club,”

“And won.” A rare arrogant look.

“It was still reckless. You thought you could die. I thought you were about to die,” Despite her look to him, he does look back at her. Reorganizing pages on the desk.

“Fear not,” Kaz stands up with papers in his hands, a passing glance into her eyes before kneeling and grabbing a bag from under the bed. “I am not heading on a suicide mission to Fjerda. I have other business.”

“Such a secret business that you won’t disclose it to your former spider, current pirate associate?” She grins at him, despite his gaze being to the ground and his items.

“Maybe someday, but not today.”

“I see.” Disappointed, she jumps from the desk and stands next to him. “And when do you leave?”

A moment of hesitation before: “In two days.”

“In two days?” 

“It’s a long trip. I want to be back in Ketterdam before you have to return.” Kaz pushes his bags back under the bed, and goes to sit on his bed.

“But we’ve just arrived, Nina’s been so ecstatic about this visit, is this business that urgent?” She feels helpless. Or perhaps, robbed. Stolen was the time to spend with all her friends and specifically, the time to spend with Kaz.

“Do you think I’d leave a month by your side if it weren’t important?” He stretches his arms to grip her hands softly and walk her to him.

“You didn’t answer me,” Inej raises her eyebrow

“Neither did you.”

“Kaz.”

Kaz lets go of her hands, and gaze breaks away from hers to look at the space of her legs and his lap.“Yes,” The words feel roughly pulled out. “For me, it is urgent.” He almosts spits them out, struggling for honesty.

“And I feel like you wouldn’t leave without reason.”

“Never.” He swears. Kaz’s eyes on her, reaching to her hands once again and holding them between his own.

Inej takes a step away, not letting go of his hands, and swinging their joined hands lazily. “I want to see you before I go back to sea. But I will not wait for you if you’re not in Ketterdam.”

“I do not doubt that, my love.” 

They share a look.

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

 

* * *

Inej jumps up in bed, she can’t place what woke her for a moment until she hears the cries from the other side of the room.

Kaz lying on his bed, still sleep, shaking his head and his entire body violently flinching away from the invisible things of his nightmares. All of this while shouting out for someone. Inej can’t really make out what he says at first. Jesper. Jesper? Giorgie. George? Jordan? Jordie.  _ Jordie _ .

“Kaz! Kaz! Wake up. Kaz!” She walks towards him quickly but as he doesn’t wake up, she reaches to shake him awake and reassure that everything was alright. In a instant before she reached his shoulders did Kaz jerk his arm up harshly batting away something within his nightmare, and simultaneously stunning Inej into remembrance.

Kaz Brekker should never be touched. Especially at his most vulnerable. 

Unknowing what to do, since he hadn’t woken up from her calling, she quickly grabbed his sheets and hit his legs with the bunched up blankets, until finally he woke with a start and reached towards whatever was hitting him and Inej managed to let go before he could pull her in.

Kaz grabs the sheets tightly before realizing what they are and setting them aside. Practically heaving, he searches the room blindly, looking for something.

“Kaz, look at me.”

His eyes shoot to her and he looks startled.

“You had a nightmare, love.” She speaks softly and it feels strange, as if talking to a scared child instead of the boy she’s in love with, and the boy who managed to hold an entire city beneath his gloved thumb. “You wouldn’t wake when I called to you so I hit you with the blankets.” 

Inej takes a second to realize how that sounded and how it must’ve looked, and laughs to herself quietly, almost nervously. Kaz exhales roughly and shakily, putting his hands on his eyes and resting his elbows on his lap.

Inej joins him, not touching, but sitting next to him on the bed. With a closer look can she see he’s covered in sweat. She breathes in deeply as if to show him what to do. It feels silly at first, but then he follows along to her and his hands move from his eyes and circle the sides of his face, and join again on his mouth, two fingers to his lips and the rest of his hand pressed against each other.

“My brother died when I was very young,” Kaz speaks after a pregnant silence. His hard voice seeming weak and fragile, he clears his throat as if to clear the vulnerability away.

“Jordie.”

Kaz breath hitches at the sound of his name, and Inej presses her lips together. And turns away from him, looking towards her bed.

“I never told you the full story of what happened to him. To us.”

She faces him again hesitant to touch any of him, but wanting to comfort him the way she knows how. It was the strong pulls of her knowledge against her instinct  fighting each other. “Kaz, you don’t have to tell me now. You don’t have to feel forced to do this.”

“Please.” He turns towards her, never looking up to her face and grabs her hand quickly, letting go as if were on fire, but pushing himself to hold her finger. “Please let me tell you.”

He takes her silence as conceding. 

“We came to Ketterdam young and orphaned; young and naive like any fucking pigeon you’ll find on the street waiting to get mugged. But we were children and I guess even then we thought we’d be safe from the terror of the world. Two children who should’ve been in school. Our parents dead. Us alone.”

He speaks quickly but clearly, almost no pause to his breath as it starts slowly picking up again.

“I was nine, Jordie got a job with a man named Jakob Hertzoon, he was a runner. because at twelve that’s all you’re supposed to be. But one day he was too greedy or too ambitious or too much of child and invested all our money on a business opportunity that Jakob offered. Jordie thought he’d win so much money out of it, but no. It was a con against  _ us _ . We lost everything.

“We were without a roof over our heads and surviving on nothing. Only nine years ago did the Queen’s plague arrive to Ketterdam, touching everyone in its way. Jordie and I got sick. It was obvious we would. He and I got sick and shivered through the days while we could hardly move and barely breathe.

“See, when the Queen’s plague arrived to the city, it took over Ketterdam and got to all us canal rats, killing us off one by one and since there was so much death in the city they would just grab the bodies off the street and take them on the Reaper’s Barge to eventually drop far the bodies away from the harbour.”

Kaz paused, turning his face away from her and looking forwards to her bed, his breathing laboured and his eyes looking past the room and reviewing his memory moment by moment.

“Jordie and I were dying with fever and one night they had taken us for dead because we were in the harbour, and the Reaper’s Barge was sailing away. We were in the water alongside the rest of  _ them _ . Bodies, Inej.  _ Bodies _ , bloated  _ corpses _ , pus out of their pores, blood on faces from  _ scratching  _ at the pox and eyes rolled back never seeing again or seeing straight forward into somewhere infinite.  They were filled with water and were not even human just a mass of meat and bone that was left there to float.

“And I was floating on top of him. Jordie. My brother went off and died without me. And the Reaper’s Barge went away, not hearing my cry out even though there was not much to even hear. And I thought about dying there and then, just letting myself drown but I was nine and death wasn’t an option.

“So I swam. Not alone. With Jordie. I took Jordie until I could reach the shore alone and I got out of the water and  _ I left him there. _ ”

Kaz’s breathing hitched and rattled, but the story stopped there. Inej was left without words, and what words could possibly do or say? There was no comfort to what had happened.

His gaze returns to hers quickly, his eyes jumping rapidly from each of hers, reading left and right and back again.

“It’s why I drown, if I hold you too long. It’s how I can’t breathe and can’t feel and feel like I’m on flames all at once. Because I drown, Inej and all I can feel is Jordie dead beneath me.”

“Thank you for telling me,” She lets out, fighting to reach to his hand. “I had noticed you were not one for touch, but had never realized how...” Her words trail off. And his eyes break away, looking at his hands, and clawing them into the bed.

 

“I want to.  _ I want to. _ But I can’t. It’s  _ too much. _ ” His hands are tense, his throat is tense and voice strained, he struggled through the words to finally bare himself to her and she can’t speak, she doesn’t know how to respond.

“Kaz,”

He looks at her. Vulnerable.

“I love you.”

Kaz lets out a breath and nods, but before he can answer back Inej continues.

“You don’t have to touch me to love me.” She reaches blindly for the desk, where she had seen him take off his gloves; when finally her hand touches the leather and she passes them to him, he puts them on almost automatically, she puts out her hands palms faced upwards, Kaz hovers his hands over hers, never touching. “And I will learn how to not touch you and show you I love you all the same.”

“But I  _ want  _ to, Inej”

“I know, and I would like to kiss you someday, without having my mind close off until it is over.” 

Kaz is silent. Inej leans towards him, never moving her untouching hands from beneath his. He meets her halfway and presses his forehead against hers, his entire frame is trembling as Inej utters out:

“You know my ghosts, and now I know yours. But no matter how broken we are, we'll fight our way out together. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i guess you all must understand how f-ing hard it is to write an inej chapter. and especially a kaz/inej chapter. like. i admire anyone who's written these two well.
> 
> also if you noticed this was written differently than the other chapters, or at least i felt it that way.
> 
> i miss matthias helvar.


	6. Matthias and Kaz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allow me to indulge you in some of the writing notes i had for myself
> 
> "how da fuq does someone write kaz brekker"
> 
> inspiring.

“You aren’t an easy person to find, Helvar.”

His cane keeps sinking in the snow, it’s odd to return to the land that a little over a year ago, had they all trodden covered in the warmest coats they could manage, yet also keeping bland non-descript clothing to not catch anyone’s eye. Kaz stands in Fjerda as he once did, but now in his suit and his warm black clothing. With his fine shoes sinking in the snow along with his cane, and his hat, placed fairly on his head.

Matthias does not respond.

“Nina told me where you were.”

Well, she told him where he was _in general_ , for Kaz had told her that he wanted that information, just to have sort of knowledge _in general_. Since one nor the other was specific, they both kept their vague truths from the other to themselves and carried on. Leading Kaz to Fjerda and Nina still in Ravka, along with all their friends.

Kaz arrived in three weeks time to the shores of the country and followed the way to where Nina unspecifically instructed, near a group of trees close to the shore but still a distance away so no one could just tumble onto the space, did Matthias Helvar wait for Kaz.

“Or is this a bad time? Are you currently being prayed to and you must keep to your treesome abilities of standing still and not speaking?”

Matthias Helvar’s grave felt too small for someone as large in life as he was. His gravestone was a literal rock, the size of those fruits that never reached Ketterdam untouched, thick skinned and bright pinkish red on the inside. The rock itself was inscribed by Nina, with a knife or another stone, it read:

**M A T T H I A S  H E L V A R**

_son, brother, friend, lover._

_till we meet again._

There’s a suspicious knot in Kaz’s throat that he swallows away. And blames his rattled breath to the walk that he had taken to reach the grave site. Even with no one for miles around him, he still has his walls up.

_Moronic_ , he thinks to himself.

Moronic impulse that drove him here, the voice of Helvar never quieting in his ear as the year kept creeping onto the six of them. The voice of Jordie, the voice of Matthias and nightmares of both of their deaths haunting him.

There was no burial for Jordan Rietveld, his mind taunted him, just the watery grave that they were both sentenced to and only one made out alive. He had gotten the man who had gotten to his death, and the voice of his dead brother since then had eased from the back of his mind.

Matthias on the other hand, had gotten killed out of no where, with no one around him and with some walking distance from where Nina and him were to meet up once more. He survived long enough with a bullet in his stomach, bleeding out. At first, he confided his theories to Inej and discarded them as quickly. The strongest theory for a long time had been a terrified neighbor shot him and ran away, in their mind seeing Matthias with some spots, didn’t risk the chance and shot.

But as long as the theory lasted, it died off just as the others. Who in Ketterdam would run on the streets in the midst of the plague returning? Who would kill a plague victim when they were already on their way to death? Who would foolishly waste bullets and run? No terrified person shoots in the stomach as lucky shot, not taking in factors as running while shooting, trembling hands and just wanting to run away.

Kaz had a last theory in place, one that frustrated him to speak aloud, for it was the most probable but the least likely to find the murderer.

The shot had most likely come from a drüskelle, driven by duty; perhaps a former enemy of Helvar’s, or even a friend that thought he had taken the wrong path so bringing him down would have been a mercy.

Similar to when one sacrifices a dying animal.

The theory, as close as it felt to the truth made Kaz feel incompetent

“Well, I assume you will receive this message in some way.” He walks towards the gravestone and as he’s about to sit on it, his bad leg aching at him gratefully, does Kaz pause.

Over a hundred people believed he had no boundaries, he had no sense of morality or humanity, and four people would discuss otherwise but never in front of other others because they knew that some of his coldness, his wretchedness was _occasionally_ only a front that he could put on in front of the ones he cared for as well.

So here, with so much land and sea covering the distance between those he loved and those who hated him, did he hesitate on sitting on the gravestone of a friend, and planted his ass in the snow.

Side-eying the grave, knowing if Matthias were around he’d have a smug grin  that he would not even try to hide from his face. “Being around you once again has your effect on me, Helvar.”

No response.

Kaz stretches his legs out, next to the stone and to the side of where a lying Matthias would lay in the ground beneath him. The cold is getting to him quickly as he expected but he doesn’t move. He sees his breath forming clouds in front of him as he breathes normally.

“If you’re asking yourself why I’m here, I could hardly give you an answer myself. Yes, you heard correctly. The _Demjin_ doesn’t know something, is he finally out of tricks and illusions? Well, not yet.”

Accommodating his legs that were both a mix of cold and wet, he he holds his cane in his hands, moving it around almost uncertain before holding onto it with both hands and placing it across his lap.

“Your death has been hard on everyone even if the only one we gave the right to mourn was Nina. I’ll admit I was affected by it as well. What happened to you, when it was something under a plan of mine, there’s a burden to your death that I thought I’d shed, but no.”

Almost under his breath he swears,“It’s all fucking stupid and impulsive of my part, truly. I came to Fjerda, to you, to all this on the impulse of getting you and my brother to quiet. For weeks have your voices rang around my head in your guilting tones.”

For weeks, before Inej or Nina had even returned, had Kaz’s brother’s voice been joined with another, an older, deeper one of a judgemental drüskelle who taunted Kaz about his death.

Who had done it.

Why hadn’t Kaz’s plan been enough.

Doesn’t he feel guilty?

Doesn’t he feel ashamed?

_Guilty for what? Ashamed for what?_

“I don’t know who killed you. Only you know that. I unfortunately can only guess at assumptions that I made in my head. I wasn’t your keeper. I wasn’t even supposed to be near you during that moment. You got killed all by yourself.

“All on your own, with Nina waiting around for you so it could end and you two could go off and continue to fall in love in Ravka...” Kaz’s voice lowered till the noises he thought he produced merely faded off from him, the only evidence was the clouds around him

_We all had our endings after the Ice Court. He merely never got to live to see his._

“This is the most reckless thing I’ve ever done. I’ve come to Fjerda to speak to a frozen tomb. To talk to a frozen rock. Or tree. Or whatever woodland sprite you ended up being. You have not left my head, you have not left my mind alone since I left Ketterdam, plaguing me with the thought of _you_.” Kaz stands up

“But now I realize that there was no purpose in coming. I made a mistake. Hopefully you’re glad to see it happen.”

Kaz begins to walk away, cold legs, rigged fingers under his gloves, wet trousers. _Pathetic. Utterly pathetic._ He thought,feeling the cane sink into the ground witch each step that he has to pull it back up, and almost in every step does he feel a resistance come in harder.

“What?” He barks at the tomb, and feels utterly insane after he does. The cold must be affecting him. Even so, he walks towards the tomb again, expecting… what? Expecting answers from a dead man? Or from a tomb? Or from a friendly wolf that might just take a bite of him for insulting the sacred faeries of this world in representation of Matthias.

“It’s not my fault that you’re dead. You cannot keep whispering that to me every time I try to sleep. I didn’t plan for someone to come out and shoot you, I didn’t expect there to be someone out for your blood in the midst of the plague, I didn’t count for it but it’s _not my fault._ ” Kaz shouts and in the back of his mind, his thoughts know that he should quiet down, the only thing lacking of this forsaken trip was to be taken in by Fjerdan authorities wandering around the coast and finding a criminal yelling at a _stone._

“How can I account you getting killed? You were a soldier, you knew how to defend yourself and you didn’t, _why_ Matthias? Why did you just let yourself get shot?” Kaz walks to the grave stone, most likely standing several feet over Matthias’s body but there’s no consideration of it for the moment. “You had a good ending waiting for you, and you died anyway.”

Kaz scoffs and feels his throat burning, and his eyes feel cold for the water forming inside of them starts to make its way out. Sharply turning away as if someone could see, Kaz runs the sleeve of his arm across his face, in a very childlike gesture.

Not facing the stone again, he whispers. “Your death is not my burden.”

Finally, he gives in and sits on the stone. “My burden is uncountable other things. Some of them I’ve shared with the others. It made them feel closer to me. One moment out of a lifetime and they see me differently.”

Kaz pauses, and his mind does the exchange somehow fit in his situation, to be free of voices, to be done once and for all. It was meaningless, worthless but he felt compelled to do so.

“Fortunately, dead drüskelle tell no tales. I’ve come up with our conclusion, Matthias Helvar.”

A life for a life.

“Though it may surprise you, I was born on a farm…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1* The size of the stone is the size of a watermelon, kinda. I don't know if those exist in the Grisha-verse so I assumed not and just explained it in a very complicated way ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> 2* Another quick finish to writing and uploading BUT IT'S FINALLY DONE.
> 
> 3* Kinda short and not very good but it's hard af to write Kaz, hats off to any of you who have ever written for him
> 
> 4* I'M DONEEEEEEEEEE IT'S SO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY TO WRITE A FIC I'LL JUST STICK TO ONE SHOTS FROM NOW ON
> 
> 5* in all seriousness, i hope you enjoyed the fic as much as i suffered with it.


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